FFXIV is too simplistic and bland

[kaynide]

This is so wrong.

FFXIV 1.23b only saw an increase in player retention and player attraction.

(To go even further, there was a huge "exodus" of 1.0 players at the release of version 2.0, because 2.0 did the very thing I'm mentioning here. Too much homogenization and simplification.)

You are completely entitled to your opinions, thoughts and ideas (of course). Some of your points I agree with, especially regarding exploreable open world options (a la FFXI dungeons) and travel (I was dissapointed very much that fishing was on a stationary ship, when it should have been easy to make the ship appear to move).

That said, the above point I would need source to confirm. If the game was doing particularly well, SE wouldn't have fired most of the 1.0 team and spent a huge chunk of money rebooting it with team YoshiP.

I CAN buy people jumping ship at launch because when 1.0 was going down it had no subscription fee, but upon 2.0 release it became subscription based, so yeah, obviously some people dipped.

Moreover, if memory serves, wasn't 1.0 overly homogeneous in that classes were largely cosmetic due to the amount of cross-class skill setups?

[Boa-Noah]

Moreover, if memory serves, wasn't 1.0 overly homogeneous in that classes were largely cosmetic due to the amount of cross-class skill setups?

To put it bluntly 1.0 was a massive failure both commercially and gameplay-wise, the maps were gigantic empty wastelands, the content not very fun to play, and the engine incredibly stilted (which we're still dealing with a decade later) and basically no one but the most hardcore even wanted to touch it. That said classes did have variety and different stats that they relied upon which you could reset by building up reset points or something like it, so if you wanted to be a warrior or whatever you'd need/level up STR and Dex and stuff and if you switched to thaumaturge you'd need to reset your points to be INT and stuff like that.

Honestly, anyone that prefers 1.0 to 2.0 is welcome to their opinion but it's an objectively terrible opinion, 1.0 died for a reason and returning 2.0 to that kind of wasted existence would decimate the playerbase and destroy the game.

[Enla]

To put it bluntly 1.0 was a massive failure both commercially and gameplay-wise, the maps were gigantic empty wastelands, the content not very fun to play, and the engine incredibly stilted (which we're still dealing with a decade later) and basically no one but the most hardcore even wanted to touch it. That said classes did have variety and different stats that they relied upon which you could reset by building up reset points or something like it, so if you wanted to be a warrior or whatever you'd need/level up STR and Dex and stuff and if you switched to thaumaturge you'd need to reset your points to be INT and stuff like that.

Honestly, anyone that prefers 1.0 to 2.0 is welcome to their opinion but it's an objectively terrible opinion, 1.0 died for a reason and returning 2.0 to that kind of wasted existence would decimate the playerbase and destroy the game.

This clip shows me pretty much everything I need to know about what playing 1.0 was like frankly. Honestly everything I've heard about 1.0 from both outside sources and friends makes it sound like a god damned nightmare to play. I'm glad it appealed to some people, but the game wouldn't have flopped so hard if something wasn't wrong with it.